


and i think that dress looks nice on you

by ennta



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, brief mentions of Celine Dion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 22:21:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ennta/pseuds/ennta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil is fashionable, Carlos is confused, and it's interns vs. scientists in an all-or-nothing karaoke war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and i think that dress looks nice on you

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Sufjan Stevens's "The Dress Looks Nice On You."

 

Cecil greeted Carlos at the door wearing yet another one of his ridiculous--or maybe they were trendy? Carlos was clueless when it came to fashion--outfits that could only look passably normal in Night Vale or, Carlos supposed, on a runway in Milan or New York City. Today Cecil had opted for a fairly normal button-up white shirt under a pinstriped indigo-and-pink vest, the sleeves rolled up so Carlos could see the tattoos snaking down and around his arms.

From the waist down, however, Cecil was quite another sartorial story: he wore a long skirt, a violet skirt layered with asymmetrical chiffon petals over what appeared to be two off-white petticoats boasting floral embroidery.

Then, of course, there were the combat boots, and also the flowers woven into Cecil’s customary long black braids. Oh yes, and the nail polish, the nail polish that gave Carlos a headache if he looked at it for too long, as though it were a splash of some existential void.

(Once Carlos had tried to paint his nails with the help of a fellow scientist, but Keesha had spilled half the bottle of O.P.I. for Night Vale’s Glowing Strong and quickly discovered it to be acidic when applied to anything but human skin or enamel.)

Carlos glanced down at his own ensemble, suddenly wishing he owned a tux or at least a nice pair of khakis. Hell, even a demure pencil skirt would feel less out-of-place than his skinny jeans and artfully-faded Metallica t-shirt under a biker jacket. (Not that Carlos had ever had the legs to pull off a pencil skirt, but doubtless Cecil would have appreciated the effort.)

So, scuffing one battered Converse against his front stoop, Carlos gestured at Cecil’s car. “So, um … Ready to go, then?” When he raised his eyes from his feet, he noticed Cecil not-so-discreetly inspecting his choice of maybe-just-a-bit-too-tight pants with a slightly predatory grin that made Carlos’s dark skin flush.

The car ride to Hoof & Spur Bar & Grille (But Really We’re Just a Bar, the Grille Part Is Just So We Seem Family-Friendly But We’re Not) seemed to stretch on forever as Carlos tried to force words out of his mouth. His brain ran in overdrive, providing him such helpful icebreakers as “Do you naturally smell like that or are those pheromones?” and the tactful “God, I want to shove your skirt up around your thighs and --”

Carlos took a deep breath, turned to Cecil, and said, quite levelly, “You look very nice tonight.”

Cecil kept his eyes on the road, but his bright white smile lit up his face. “You look very lovely yourself, my Carlos. But I’m sure you knew that. You look very …” He risked a glance over at Carlos. “Very roguish, if I may say so. It … it fits.”

Yes, “roguish” was definitely an apt descriptor for a man who once spent two hundred dollars on various science-y knick-knacks from Think Geek and still had a framed Star Wars poster (signed by Billy Dee Williams!) hanging over his bed. Carlos smiled a little at the irony but didn’t bother correcting Cecil as they pulled into the Hoof & Spur’s crowded gravel parking lot.

“Now remember,” Cecil advised, not bothering to lock his car but instead nonchalantly handing his keys off to a group of teenagers in dark hoodies and tight leather pants, “you don’t have to participate in karaoke night, but my interns would very much like me to, so …” He sighed. “Oh, perfect Carlos, I would much rather stay with you all evening, but I promised …”

Carlos grabbed Cecil by the crook of an elbow and pulled him close, planting a possessive kiss just above his ear as they made it into the bar. “Mmmm, I understand,” he whispered, though really he’d rather spend the rest of the night with Cecil’s warmth pressed up close to him. “Some of my colleagues are competing, too, so I suppose I can sit with them while you’re performing.”

A swish of skirts brought Cecil face-to-face with Carlos even as he reached behind him to prick his finger on a booth and bind it to their auras for the evening. He stood on his tiptoes for a kiss, then overbalanced--quite purposely, Carlos thought--and dragged them into their booth.

Carlos found himself sprawled between Cecil’s legs and quickly pulled away--sure, that was part of his plan for the night, but not in broad daylight in a shady dive bar and grille and so-called “family establishment”. But God, the way that chiffon and soft cotton felt over the strong sinews of Cecil’s thighs. …

Well. Carlos took a deep breath, planted his elbows on the table, and tried to ignore the fact that he had discovered quite an unexpected new kink and was in no place to do anything about it.

“Would you like a drink?” Cecil asked, his eyes moving back and forth across the empty space above the tabletop, as though he were reading an invisible menu. He paused to glance over at Carlos. “But if you don’t drink, that’s fine too. I’m not trying to pressure you, I just thought--I mean, we’re at a bar, we can’t just ask for wine.”

Carlos put one hand over Cecil’s and stroked absently at the mystifying nail polish. It made his fingertips tingle where he touched it, so he brought Cecil’s hand to his mouth and experimentally kissed along his fingernails. With a sharp, pleasant sting lingering on his lips, Carlos finally relinquished Cecil’s hand back to the tabletop and look him directly in the eyes. “Whatever you want,” he said, his voice hoarse in his ears. “Order something you think I would like, something someone from outside Night Vale may not have tried before. And,” he added hurriedly, “something that won’t, you know, kill me.”

Cecil beamed, a blush warming his dark skin. “Oh, Carlos, perfect Carlos, for you to trust me like this--” He placed his hand on Carlos’s knee and leaned close, tilting his head up so that his hair nuzzled the black scruff along Carlos’s jaw. He sat back up after a moment and hailed a waitress, who materialized out of thin air with orders Cecil had telepathically given moments ago. After tipping her with a drop of blood, Cecil leaned back into Carlos’s side and sighed contentedly.

Carlos reached out for his drink, hoping it would momentarily distract him from Cecil’s distinct purring and the hand tracing its way in a most unsubtle manner up his thigh. They had been on four dates now, not including this one, and while Carlos desperately wanted to take their relationship further than teenage make-outs in front of staticy television screens, he had no particular desire to do so in public.

He was almost relieved when, with a shout of recognition, a group of interns and scientists crowded into the booth around Cecil and Carlos, whooping outlandish threats at one another and conjuring their own drinks. The interns were planning an optimistic rendition of Gloria Gaynor’s _I Will Survive_ , while the scientists were bickering among themselves, trying to chose between Coldplay’s _The Scientist_ and, somewhat incongruously, Barry Manilow’s _Weekend In New England_.

The noise levels escalated until Carlos could do nothing but fade back into the excitement bubbling around him. He tried to join in a few times, mostly on Cecil’s insistence, but when his half-hearted attempts at socialization fell flat, Cecil simply gave him an understanding smile and spent the rest of the frenzied group conversation petting Carlos’s leg under the table and occasionally leaning in to kiss his jaw.

By the time the interns and scientists began to take their places on the small karaoke stage up front, Carlos felt as though he had quite met his socialization quota for the week and conjured up another drink to help his headache. He loved that Cecil was having fun--and the man was definitely having fun, belting out a confident rendition of Celine Dion’s _Call the Man_ in that deep, theatrical voice--but Carlos desperately wanted a dark corner and a bottle of ibuprofen.

The interns took their turn next, stoically making their way through _I Will Survive_ even as members of the crowd picked them off with arrows, rotten fruit, and, in one toothless woman’s case, a flamethrower. The scientists won by default, having lived through the entire contest, and the celebration was another round of drinks and yet more noise crowding Carlos into the background.

In the midst of the din, Cecil pressed himself up against Carlos.

“Sweet Carlos, we can go now,” he offered. “I never meant for you to be so uncomfortable--”

Carlos smiled weakly and shook his head. “It’s okay. I like to see you happy. You were -- you were good up there.”

Cecil beamed. “Well,” he admitted coyly, “I had planned on singing _Seduces Me_ , but I thought I would save that for the two of us, some other time. Not all Celine Dion is meant for public consumption.”

Carlos’s smile widened, because really, no Celine Dion was ever meant for public consumption. “Can we go home now?”

Cecil’s grin seemed too sharp to be human. “Where is home, really?”

“We’re going to Cecil’s!” Intern Vithya chose that moment to cry out, raising a glass in the air and eliciting a happy cheer from the crowd.

“I do have the best liquor cabinet,” Cecil explained apologetically. He helped Carlos out of the booth as the mixed group of interns and scientists made for the door. “I can drop you off at your place, but I’d rather not leave them alone with my home …”

Carlos’s head felt a bit fuzzy and a tight ache of disappointment rose in his chest. “D’you think -- maybe I could come home with you, but find someplace quiet?”

“Of course, my Carlos.” Cecil’s long fingers traced circles from one of Carlos’s shoulder blades to the other as they followed the parade of their comrades to the door.

They stepped outside the bar and Cecil opened the backseat of his car to help Carlos in. The hooded teenagers Cecil had tossed his keys to earlier were crammed in the front seat. Hmmm. Valets as well as designated drivers. Carlos filed that away for future reference.

For the brevity of the ride back to Cecil’s apartment, the universe was soft and quiet in Carlos’s ears. Cecil hadn’t bothered with seatbelts--possibly because he had cut them all out to wear as belts and suspenders--and lay across him, his head over Carlos’s heart, his hand wandering to places that were one-hundred-percent not innocent or appropriate.

“Unless you’re going to find us some privacy and a somewhat comfortable surface,” Carlos mumbled, grabbing Cecil’s wayward hand and twining their fingers together, “you should probably find somewhere else to put your hands.”

He felt Cecil’s smile against his neck.

***

It only took fifteen minutes for the party to kick into full-swing once the group arrived back at Cecil’s, and Cecil spent ten of those minutes opening his liquor cabinet and handing over bartender duties to Keesha and Vithya.

The next five minutes were spent dragging Carlos to a bedroom, finding it already occupied by two interns, a shadow demon, and a hydra, then pulling Carlos into a large, well-lit bathroom and locking the door behind them.

“How’s this?” Cecil asked proudly, doing a little twirl in the space between the large bathtub and the vanity. He sat on the side of the tub and crossed his ankles primly. “Of course, it leaves something to be desired, but--” He slid backwards until he was in the tub, staring up at Carlos with dark, beckoning eyes.

Carlos could feel the rush of alcohol and whatever other foreign substances Night Vale had poured into his brain rushing through his bloodstream, but none of that mattered now, not with Cecil lying in the bathtub, legs spread, his skirts riding up around his knees as he looked up at Carlos through long lashes.

Carlos stumbled forward into the tub, grasping for Cecil’s face, meeting the other man’s hungry lips with his own. Cecil was fumbling out of his vest and button-down, Carlos’s hands alternately helping and impeding, and then they were wresting the shirt away and tossing it across the bathroom.

“This -- is this okay?” Carlos managed to gasp. Cecil was reaching for the hem of his t-shirt now, and every place those fingernails touched left little trails of lust and fire.

“Perfect,” Cecil assured him. “Just -- just amazing.”

Carlos pulled his shirt off and pressed his body up between Cecil’s legs, brought his mouth to Cecil’s ear, forgot, in a rush of heat and hope and need, to be humiliated by his desires, and whispered, “God, I’ve wanted to get under that skirt all night,” as he slid a hand down to Cecil’s knee and began to work the soft petticoats up, up, up to Cecil’s thighs. “Wanna kiss you -- suck you -- god, you’re beautiful, you don’t know how beautiful --”

And he tilted his head to lick along the tattoos at Cecil’s collarbones -- fuck, long hair and tattoos had always been his goddamn weaknesses -- to follow the trails the ink left down Cecil’s stomach, through the dark curls between his belly-button and his waistband, and _sweet Jesus_ he could feel the warmth of Cecil’s erection against him and the desperate little tugs at his hair as Cecil moaned a steady litany of breathless consent.

Carlos didn’t even bother trying to remove the skirt, just hiked it up so that he could get his fingers under the waistband of Cecil’s underthings and tug them down around his knees. Then there was nothing but skin, warm, dark skin as Carlos took Cecil’s cock in his hands and trailed experimental touches along the shaft. His own cock quickly decided he didn’t have time for that, however, and he took Cecil in his mouth, licking slowly around the head, timing his movements with Cecil’s little moans and helpless gasps.

It had been years since Carlos had done this--years since he had even wanted to, really--but Cecil, Christ, Cecil just made him feel like he was sixteen again, and he knew he was being sloppy, knew his technique left a lot to be desired, but then he took Cecil deeper and swallowed around him and rational thought became a distant memory. He moaned around the cock in his mouth, wet with his own ministrations, and pressed his palms against Cecil’s hips to keep him from bucking up against the stimulus. The thought that he was doing this to Cecil, he, _Carlos_ , Carlos, the one in the Metallica t-shirt and Converse who was so used to watching awkwardly as Cecil defied every law of logic and existence in a close-minded world ...

Cecil’s hands had tangled themselves in Carlos’s hair, not demanding, just there, and Cecil’s voice was getting higher as he babbled nonstop -- _perfect Carlos, beautiful Carlos, such a perfect mouth such a perfect tongue nnnghhh_ \-- before individual syllables faded into meaningless hungry white noise. He managed a breathless warning, a hushed little cry of _i’m almost there, please, please i’m there please_ , and Carlos did the only gentlemanly thing he could think to do, sucking hard along Cecil’s length, stilling Cecil as much as he could while swallowing around his cock, sucking him dry, licking him clean.

Cecil tasted like--like too much salt and something else, something not unpleasant but not familiar, and Carlos ran his tongue over his wet lips to see if he could classify the strangeness further, but by then his own erection was raw and sensitive against his too-tight briefs and jeans, and just the sight of Cecil with his head tipped back and his eyes closed in elation made it easy for Carlos to push down his jeans and underwear, to stroke himself off, to grab his t-shirt and come into the soft fabric so as not to leave a mess all over the two of them.

He slid up between Cecil’s legs, resting his head on the man’s bare chest, trying to make sense of the soft whispers Cecil was leaving against his hair.

“I’m sorry, perfect Carlos, I should have been touching you,” Cecil whispered. “I promise I’ll make it up to you next time, next time I’ll do anything you want--”

“Mmmm.” Carlos closed his eyes. “That was what I wanted to do.” He reached up to twist one of Cecil’s braids around his fingers. “And maybe next time a bed would be nice.”

Cecil chuckled, a warm hum that radiated from his body to Carlos’s. “ _Mmm_ , yes, my perfect Carlos. Next time.”

***

The clock had just hit seven by the time a group of interns managed to pick the bathroom door’s heavy-duty lock. By then three of the scientists had lost their battles with alcohol-filled bladders (their respective bladders, not the free-floating gangs of bladders occasionally seen in Old Town) and resorted to shrubbery, but Vithya and Keesha, who had both made bets with the Sheriff’s Secret Police as to just how undressed--and in what positions--they would find Cecil and Carlos were quite pleased with their post-karaoke-night winnings.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, friends. If you'd like more Cecil/Carlos, join me on tumblr, where I go by [in-static-pallor](http://in-static-pallor.tumblr.com/) and frequently fangirl hard enough to break bones and melt minds.


End file.
